Nutbar protesting Senate page DePape and her Senator connection

The newly crowned media darling Brigette DePape called “feisty” by CBC’s Evan Solomon after she brazenly appealed for employment on his show lists Senator Sharon Carstairs as her mentor on her University of Ottawa scholarship bio:

Brigette DePape, 2007 Loran scholar 
Originally from Winnipeg, Brigette is a first-year international development and globalization student. Brigette has performed and written plays for the Winnipeg Fringe Festival, was a member of her high school basketball team and president of its social justice committee. At uOttawa she is balancing studies in arts and theatre. Her mentor is Sharon Carstairs, a Liberal Senator representing the Province of Manitoba.

I’m trying my hardest not to judge her worthiness for a scholarship based on what I just heard and saw on Power and Politics but my faith in post secondary education has again been put to the test.

According to the Ottawa Citizen (see here), her political activism was well-known and this stunt came as no shock to Shauna MacKinnon, the director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives where DePape interned last year:

“She is a very gutsy young woman, so it is not entirely surprising. If someone (I knew) were to do this, it would be Brigette.”

As easily discovered yesterday, DePape had written about protesting at the G8/20 (see here) so whoever hired her had to know her background or looked the other way. Senate spokeswoman Karen Schwinghamer is not telling what the process is for these hires and DePape isn’t saying whether she was asked about her political biases and writings.

Speaker of the Senate Noel Kinsella said that DePape’s protest “constituted a contempt of Parliament.” and that “The incident raises serious security concerns, which the Senate will fully investigate.”

I highly doubt that a full investigation will occur and even if it does, we as the public will be kept in the dark if any embarrassment to a Senator is attached.

Toronto Star turns on Layton for playing with unity

 

The Toronto Star was the only major newspaper to endorse the NDP for the election which was because there was no way the editorial staff could twist themselves into pretzels to back Ignatieff and Hell will freeze over before they endorse Harper.

Now though, the Star has to deal with Smilin’ Jack and his nutty views and party policies like the one that plays footsie with Quebec separatists by supporting a 50% plus 1 succession policy even though the Supreme Court has ruled against slim majorities deciding separation.

The problem for the Star’s credibility is that this has been on the NDP’s agenda since 2005 so it’s not like it was unknown before the election. Their editorial staff either didn’t know or didn’t care what they were endorsing as long is it was anything but Conservative. Kinda sad huh? (see here)